Blackfriars Bridge
by awkotaco14
Summary: The meeting at Blackfriars Bridge in Jem's POV. One shot. Most dialogue is Cassandra Clare's writing.


**Hi y'all.**

**So far, this is a one shot in Jem's point of view about the meeting in Blackfriars bridge, but if enough people want me to continue it I might. **

**I am IN LOVE with Jem, he was one of my favorite characters, (second to Henry), and I just wanted to write something in his POV. And I also wanted to write something other than Maximum Ride Fanfics...so why not?**

**THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS TO CLOCKWORK PRINCESS. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT DON'T READ.**

**CASSANDRA CLARE OWNS ALL OF THIS. PRACTICALLY ALL OF THE DIALOGUE IN THIS CHAPTER IS HER WRITING.**

**I hope you guys like it. **

* * *

I'm nervous.

Today is the first time I will see Tessa in one hundred thirty years as truly Jem Carstairs, not Brother Zacharia. I am not the same as before, and I never will be.

It's kind of hard to explain what it's like to be a Silent Brother. You're able to see so much, to see life happen so quickly as if you aren't really a part of this world. It's like climbing up a building, or hill, or any high place, really, and looking down at people, both the ones of the Shadow World and the ones not, doing daily things in their quite extraordinarily ordinary lives.

Life is really, truly beautiful. Beautifully melancholy. There are so many beings filled with love and hate, some more than others. There are so many beings with problems, some more than others. There are so many beings who are hurt, some more than others.

There are so many lives. So many struggles and triumphs.

Most people are here for such a short time. And most people are afraid to die, to be be forgotten, to be sent into oblivion. But it does not matter how long you live. It matters what you do within your years. We must not think quantity, but quality. Experience is good. But too much can overwhelming.

It's windy and wet, typical weather for London. But London itself is not the same as it was decades ago. Girls are not dressed in elegant, Victorian gowns, but in simple jeans and shirts. There are not horse drawn carriages, but mobiles and double decker buses. It's miraculous, to see how society adapts and changes.

Blackfriars Bridge has changed as well. The Dover and Chatham railway bridge is gone; the view isn't as bad as it was before, but I had always thought it was beautiful either way.

I see her sitting on a concrete bench. She looks beautiful as always, her hair long, tumbling down her back. I muster up my courage to speak, ignoring the turmoil in my stomach.

"Tessa?"

She turns around slowly, almost unbearingly so. I can tell she's shocked, maybe even scared.

I smile tentatively. I don't have a clue on how she'll react.

She's dressed modernly, like I am, with those jeans and boots. I can see the bracelet Will gave her on their anniversary peeking out of her sleeve.

Will's death pained greatly. I felt as if something had ripped out of me, that there was something that couldn't be replaced, married Tessa, yes, but if I wanted anyone to marry Tessa, it would be Will. They both deserve the best. I was happy they had a life together.

"Jem?" Tessa whispers, an unreadable expression on her face. Her grey eyes, filled with so many years and experience despite her young face, scan me.

The_ yin fen's_ traces all gone. My eyes are no longer silver, but dark brown, my hair black. The cure...It was difficult to find. But they had found it, and I was forever in their debt.

I couldn't be here, like this, as Jem Carstairs, with Tessa Gray, the girl who I have loved for so long if it weren't for them.

"You are-" I see hope spark through her eyes, and it colors her voice. "This is permanent? You are not bound to the Silent Brothers anymore?"

"No," I say. my heart beat pounds . I'm silently pleading for her to accept me, to be alright with this.

"The cure-you found it?"

"I did not find it myself, but-it was found." I don't want to say much about the cure. I barely know enough as it is.

Slight confusion plays across her face. "I saw Magnus in Alicante only a few months ago. We spoke of you. He never said…"

"He didn't know." I say. "It has been a hard year, a dark year, for Shadowhunters. But out of the blood and the fire, the loss and sorrow, there have been born some great new changes." I hold out my arms, looking down at myself. "I myself am changed."

"How-"

"I will tell you the story of it. Another story of Lightwoods and Herondales and Fairchilds. But it will take more than an hour in telling, and you must be cold." I had felt somewhat contradicted, to see the descendents of my closest family. I felt a yearning, a sadness, and sense of oldness to see the similar faces, to see Cecily's eyes, Henry's hair, Gabriel and Gideon's loyalty and Will's personality embedded into their kin.

But I was glad. Very glad, to see what had become their legacy.

I move forward, then stop myself. Things were different now. We were not the same as we were before, and it was unclear of Tessa still felt the same way I did. Everything was unclear at this point.

"I-" She cuts minds whirling, I know. There's something in her eyes. "But-after today? Where will you go? To Idris?"

"I don't know." I say. I had considered going to Idris, but it just wouldn't be the same without Will, or Tessa, or even Charlotte and the rest of them with me. "I've never had a lifetime to plan for before."

"Then...to another Institute?" There's a pleading in her eyes, and I feel a sense of hope.

I pause, measuring my words out carefully. "I do not think I will go to Idris, or to an Institute anywhere. I don't know how to live in the world as a Shadowhunter without Will. I don't think I even want to. I am still his parabatai but my other half is gone. If I were to go to some Institute, and ask them to take me in, I would never forget that. I would never feel whole."

"Then what-"

"That depends on you."

"On me?" She looks afraid, unsure.

I want her to tell me to stay. I want her to say she loves me. I want her to love me.

I've loved her for so long...It almost seems unreal. She almost seems unreal. Is she just an illusion? A thing I'll never be able to have or reach?

The silence is so overbearing that I can't stand it. "I-" I look down, away from her piercing eyes. "For a hundred and thirty years every hour of my life has been scheduled. I thought often of what I would do if I were free, if there were ever a cure found. I thought I would bolt immediately, like a bird released from a cage. I had not imagined I would emerge and find a world so changed, so desperate. Subsumed in fire and blood. I wished to survive it, but only for one reason. I wished…" I trail off, doubting myself.

But she encourages me to go on. "What did you wish for?"

I don't answer, but I reach for her bracelet. "This is your thirtieth anniversary bracelet. You still wear it."

She stares up at me. "Yes."

"Since Will, have you never loved anyone else?"

She looks bewildered. "Don't you know the answer to that?"

"I don't mean the way you love your children, or the way you love your friends." I say. Do you love me? I ask silently. Did you ever love me?

"We-we were going to be married." I feel bold, but I'm not sure why. I just wanted to know. I needed to know. "And I have loved you all this time, all these years. And I knew that you loved Will. I saw you together. And I know that that love was so great that it must have made other loves, even the one we had when we were both so young, even the one we had when we were both so young, seem small and unimportant. You had a whole life time with him. Memories I cannot hope to-" I break off. I'm not sure that I'm able to do this. I don't-I don't know if I should.

"No," I say, feeling foolish. "I can't do it. I was a fool to think- Tessa, forgive me." I walk away quickly, eventually breaking out into a run, feeling embarrassed and pained. Why would I think such a thing, that she would love me after it had been so long?

I run down the stairs, not really knowing where I am going.

I suddenly stop at the railing, staring at the black river. I wasn't sure what to do now. Everything I had done until then was preparing me for this moment, with Tessa.

Someone grabs my sleeve, and I turn around, my eyes widening as I saw that it was Tessa.

"What were you trying to ask me, Jem?" She asked, breathlessly.

I felt heat rise up to my cheeks, and I stare at her, astonished. "You followed me?"

"Of course I followed you. You ran off in the middle of a sentence!"

"It wasn't a very good sentence." I said, smiling slightly. "I'm not very good with words. If I had my violin, I would've played what I wanted to say."

"Just try."

"I don't-I'm not sure that I can. I had six or seven speeches prepared, and I was running through all of them, I think."

She reaches for my hands, her hands wrapping gently around my wrists, sending tingles through my spine. "So let me ask you, then."

"You asked me if I have loved anyone but Will." She says, the wind blowing her hair back. "And the answer is yes. I have loved you, and I always will."

I feel as if that one sentence alone has squeezed the air out of my lungs. I do not think or speak. I only focus on her, on Tessa.

"They say you cannot love two people equally at once," She says. "And perhaps for others that is so. But you and Will-you are not like two ordinary people, two people who might have been jealous of each other. You merged your souls together when you were both children. And I could not love you as I do if I had not loved Will as I did."

She shows me her necklace. The necklace, the Jade pendant I had given her so long ago. My heart quivers in my chest.

"I've never taken it off."

I close my eyes. This feels so right, so wonderfully perfect.

"Come with me," She says. "Stay with me. Be with me. I have traveled the world and seen so many things- but there is no one I would rather go with then you. I would go everywhere and anywhere with you, Jem Carstairs."

I raise my hand to her cheek, brushing my thumb against her soft skin. I can't believe it; it seems unreal, to have something I had wished for so long.

She is the one, the only one I will ever love, and when I die, and she lives on, I will search for her, through all the lives my soul will have. My soul was made for hers, and she has my love for the rest of her life.

"Will you come with me? For I cannot wait to share the world with you, Jem. There is much to see."

I wrap her up in my arms, burying my face into her hair. Breathing in her scent.

"Yes. Always yes."

And we kissed, and I knew that I had finally found where I belonged.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**

**~awkotaco14**


End file.
